Tools Trivia
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This tools trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and covers the hand tools and power tools everyone owns and nobody thinks about: how old the hammer really is, where the screwdriver was invented, why a Phillips head cams out, who patented the Robertson and Torx drives, what a spirit level is filled with, and why the chainsaw was originally a surgical instrument. It also covers the brands and inventors behind the toolbox: Black & Decker's pistol-grip drill, Stihl, Vise-Grip, Leatherman, the Swiss Army knife, WD-40's real name, duct tape's wartime origin, Stanley, DeWalt, Makita, Snap-on and Craftsman. Easy questions suit workshop and pub quizzes; the harder ones on patents and dates will test tradespeople and DIY obsessives. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01According to a 2012 find near Kenya's Lake Turkana, the use of simple hammers dates back roughly how far?
3.3 million years
Stone hammers and anvils at the Lomekwi 3 site are about 3.3 million years old, older than the earliest known Homo fossils; hafted hammers with handles only appear around 30,000 BCE.
Q 02The Oldowan stone tools are named after which site in Tanzania?
Olduvai Gorge
Louis Leakey found the first of these simple choppers and flakes at Olduvai Gorge in the 1930s; the industry is the oldest widespread stone-tool tradition, beginning about 2.6 million years ago.
Q 03The screwdriver was probably invented in the late 15th century in which two countries?
Germany or France
The first documented screwdrivers appeared in Germany or France around 1475-1500, turning the hand-made screws that held together plate armour and matchlock firearms.
Q 04The Phillips cross-head drive is widely criticised for which tendency under high torque?
Camming out
Camming out, the driver riding up and out of the recess as torque rises, is the Phillips head's notorious flaw; Pozidriv and other later recesses were designed to resist it.
Q 05Which carmaker first adopted Henry Phillips's cross-head screws on its assembly lines in 1936?
General Motors
General Motors put Phillips screws on its 1936 Cadillac line, drawn by a recess that self-centred power drivers; Phillips had bought the design from inventor John P. Thompson.
Q 06The square-socket Robertson screw is especially common in which country?
Canada
Canada took to Peter Robertson's 1908 square drive so completely that it remains the default there; Henry Ford used them on Canadian-built Model Ts but was refused a licence for his US plants.
Q 07The six-pointed star-shaped Torx drive was developed in 1967 by which company?
Camcar Textron
Camcar Textron, a Rockford, Illinois fastener maker, introduced Torx in 1967; its star recess resists slipping under torque, winning it a place in cars and electronics, and a security version adds a pin.
Q 08'Allen', the everyday name for a hex key, is a registered trademark of a company from which US city?
Hartford, Connecticut
The Allen Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut, trademarked the name around 1910; in Denmark and Norway the tool is often called an Unbrako key after a rival brand.
Q 09What do the British, Irish, Australians and New Zealanders call a wrench?
A spanner
In American English, 'spanner' means a specialised wrench with pins or tabs around its rim.
Q 10The Swedish company Bahco credits which inventor with the modern adjustable wrench, patented in 1892?
Johan Petter Johansson
Johan Petter Johansson patented his adjustable spanner in 1892 and built it at his Enköping works, which became Bahco; Americans know the type as a Crescent wrench after a later US maker.
Q 11According to the popular but false story, the monkey wrench was named after an inventor called what?
Charles Moncky
The Charles Moncky story has no patent or record behind it; 'monkey wrench' was already in print in the 1840s, and the name may simply liken the adjustable jaws to a monkey's face.
Q 12The first locking pliers, sold as Vise-Grip, were invented in 1924 by William Petersen in which state?
Nebraska
William Petersen, a Danish immigrant blacksmith in DeWitt, Nebraska, patented the locking pliers in 1924; the toggle action locks the jaws over-centre, and in Britain the tool is a Mole wrench.
Q 13A precursor of the modern chainsaw was developed around 1830 by Bernhard Heine for what purpose?
Bone surgery
Q 21What does the name WD-40 stand for?
Water Displacement, 40th formula
Water Displacement, 40th formula records the 40th attempt at a rust-preventing solvent by San Diego's Rocket Chemical Company in 1953; Convair first used it on Atlas missile skins, and it was never patented.
Q 22Which company's Revolite division developed the WWII cloth tape that became duct tape?
Johnson & Johnson
It has flown on every NASA mission since Gemini and helped jury-rig the CO2 filters on Apollo 13.
Q 23Which spiral wood-boring bit with a screw point is traditionally turned in a brace?
Auger bit
Heine's osteotome, a hand-cranked chain of cutting teeth, was a bone surgery instrument that cut without splintering; Aitken and Jeffray had used a chain saw for symphysiotomy in the 1780s.
Q 14Which company patented an electric chainsaw for logging sites in 1926 and a petrol one in 1929?
Stihl
Andreas Stihl founded the firm to mass-produce them.
Q 15The first portable handheld electric drill was built in 1895 by the Fein brothers in which city?
Stuttgart
Wilhelm and Carl Fein built the first portable electric drill at their Stuttgart firm in 1895, a heavy machine braced against the user's chest; the company dates from 1867.
Q 16Which Baltimore-born company patented the pistol-grip, trigger-switch electric drill in 1917?
Black & Decker
Black & Decker, founded in a Baltimore machine shop in 1910, patented the pistol-grip drill in 1917 and later built cordless tools for NASA's Gemini and Apollo programmes.
Q 17Which company began making Swiss Army knives in Ibach, Switzerland, in 1891?
Victorinox
Karl Elsener's Ibach workshop delivered its first soldier's knives in 1891 and took the name Victorinox in 1921, from his mother Victoria and 'inox', stainless steel; rival Wenger was absorbed in 2005.
Q 18Who popularised the English term 'Swiss Army knife' in place of the German Offiziersmesser?
US soldiers after World War II
US soldiers after World War II bought the knives in PX stores and, unable to say Offiziersmesser, called them Swiss Army knives; the term stuck worldwide.
Q 19What was Tim Leatherman trying to repair on a 1975 trip when he thought up his multi-tool?
A Fiat 600 car
A Fiat 600 car he and his wife Chau bought in Amsterdam for $300 kept breaking down across Europe; the resulting Pocket Survival Tool first sold in 1983.
Q 20Leatherman Tool Group is based in which US city?
Portland, Oregon
Leatherman Tool Group has been based in Portland, Oregon, since its 1983 founding and makes its pliers-based multi-tools there; Tim Leatherman started it with partner Steve Berliner.
An auger bit's screw tip pulls it into the wood while its spiral flutes lift the chips; its square tang fits the chuck of a hand brace.
Q 24Why is a spirit level called a 'spirit' level?
Its vial is filled with alcohol
Its vial is filled with alcohol, which has a lower freezing point and viscosity than water so the bubble moves freely; Melchisédech Thévenot devised the instrument by 1661.
Q 25The 'plumb' in plumb bob comes from the Latin word for which metal?
Lead
Lead is plumbum in Latin, the root of both 'plumb bob' and 'plumber'; the dense metal makes a compact weight that pulls the line straight down.
Q 26Which Greek mathematician said that with a long enough lever and a place to stand he could move the world?
Archimedes
Archimedes, who set out the law of the lever in On the Equilibrium of Planes, is quoted by Pappus of Alexandria: 'Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth.'
Q 27Conrad Bahr, who claimed to invent the first torque-limiting tool in 1918, worked for which employer?
New York City Water Department
At the New York City Water Department, Bahr wanted flange bolts on water mains tightened evenly; he and George Pfefferle later patented an adjustable ratcheting torque wrench in 1935.
Q 28The vernier scale on a caliper is named after a French mathematician who invented it in which year?
1631
Pierre Vernier described his secondary scale in a 1631 treatise on a new quadrant; the offset graduations let a reader interpolate between the main scale's marks.
Q 29The Dremel rotary tool company was founded in 1932 in which Wisconsin city?
Racine
Albert J. Dremel, an Austrian-born inventor, set up the Dremel Manufacturing Company in Racine, on Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shore, in 1932; the firm later passed to Emerson Electric and then Bosch.
Q 30Tabitha Babbitt, credited with inventing the circular saw in 1813, belonged to which religious group?
The Shakers
The Shakers of Harvard, Massachusetts, counted Babbitt among them; she reputedly attached a circular blade to her spinning wheel after watching men waste half their effort on the pit saw's return stroke.